Example linguistics dissertation topic 8:

Language acquisition and the role of parents: An analysis.

The statistical fact that 30% of households with children within England do not contain a single book may be considered startling. Using this as a starting point this dissertation analyses the use of language at home and the effects that it has upon the linguistic ability of pre-school children. This is a dissertation that combines linguistics with aspects of child psychological development and includes a number of ethical considerations – regarding confidentiality and the recording of family circumstances. It is envisaged that this project will involve close work with two different families and that these should be chosen on the basis of the extent to which, prior to the study, the parents of the children read to (and with) them. Noting the different speed of language acquisition by the children involved in this study over a six-month observation period, this thesis offers a number of insights and proposals to increase language skills amongst pre-school aged children.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Marcus, G.F. (1996). ‘Why do children say “breaked”?’, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 5, pp. 81-85.
• Plunkett, K. and Marchman, V.A. (1993). ‘From rote learning to system building: Acquiring verb morphology in children and connectionist nets’, Cognition, Vol. 48, pp. 21-69.
• Shore, C.M. (1995). Individual differences in language development. London: SAGE.